There is no recipe for that hum of excitement

Sorry in advance folks about my broken linkity-link button. It is pouting over in the corner and refusing to acknowledge my repeated requests. In fact none of the buttons work. No idea when normal transmission will resume.

I have seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two and have become a little obsessed. Hoping to see it for the third time today. I guess after seven previous movies played out over the ten teenage years of much of the cast, both story and reality have somehow entwined to deliver up an intense and satisfying conclusion. If it was an eight part series about adults it couldn't reveal growth and change in the characters in the same way. You know you are an adult when you can wipe all memory of yourself from the minds of your parents in order to protect them from unbridled evil. And -SPOILER ALERT IF BY ANY CHANCE YOU HAVE WANDERED INTO MY BLOG WITHOUT BEING A READER - when you have fought the enemy for so long, delivering yourself up for death makes sense. And now it is over.

Read this interesting post (http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/07/thing-about-self-promotion-is-that-self.html) over at Nathan Bransford (ex-agent, now author)'s blog and nodded at this bit

"This is one of the hugest drawbacks about an era of publishing where publishers expect authors to shoulder the lion's share of the promotional activities. No one I know enjoys self-promotion, and no one out there particularly likes being promoted to either. People usually want to hear about new things from enthusiastic and neutral third parties, not the hugely biased person who created the thing."

Bransford goes on to say that despite the hideousness of self-promotion you have to suck it up and do it anyway. I struggle mightily with this. If folk would rather hear it from someone else then telling them directly might be a bigger turn off then a turn on. Campaigns that go viral, go viral for reasons that all the experts in the field can't explain. Look at Harry Potter (the editor at Scholastic US himself said he was closing the fantasy imprint when Harry Potter came along), look at Susan Boyle, look at Twilight or Justin Bieber. There are plenty of things shoved in our faces everyday that 'don't take'. Movies, books, programmes, stars, with lots of money and creative thinking and crafty persuasive advertising behind them and none of it generates that hum of excitement, that 'I gotta have it' reaction. I will go out and meet potential readers and read my books to folk and hope they like what they hear enough to part company with their money to own it. But I don't know that doing more than that makes a difference. The one thing I will do is keep trying to create new work that readers might like, especially those that liked my previous work. Because sometimes it is the weight of one's career that helps it build speed.

Shiny new things...

A big package arrived in the post for me today. Sadly not a suitcase full of money which i regularly wish for on fallen eyelashes. Nope, today i got my first posting from the University of Canterbury for the Image and Narrative paper I am taking towards a Diploma in Children's literature. I felt smarter straightaway and then I opened the package. Memories of my extramural Bachelor of arts degree (in English) came flooding back. Assignment cover sheets, barcoded stickers and instruction sheets along with the shiny fat study guides all crisp and inviting. On the second page was my very first assignment. I am excited and nervous - what have i done? I will keep you posted on whether it was a good idea or not.

In an even more exciting development, my picture book, The Were-Nana, is to be read on Radio NZ's storytime this Sunday (Feb 15) morning. This has never happened to any of my stories before (although my article on cheerleading was put on CD by Learning Media and the anthology Dare and Double Dare including my story Rush has been recorded for the blind). In a surprising twist I only learnt about it third hand, via a friend who heard it from another friend who heard it mentioned on the radio whilst in her car. I would have thought there might be some official notification. Thank you Jill and Stina. Even google hasn't alerted me on this one even though there it is mentioned on the National radio website. I am fascinated by the prospect of someone other than me reading my story aloud (although I know schoolteachers and librarians are already doing it but this seems to take it one step further). I am full of happy and excited thoughts at the prospect and feel a bit honoured that it is happening to a story of mine.

Public speaking

I have been at this writing thing for around 9 or 10 years and you would think i'd be used to the slow pace of everything by now, but I'm not. I find it hard to keep my head together some days wondering when i'm going to hear about stuff. i know i should be working on my next project and its not like i'm stuck on it or anything. I know where i'm going with it and all. But as with all my writing its still a big time investment that may never pay off. I'd love to have my current project contracted before its finished.

It doesn't help that i am giving a talk tonight to other writers on ten important things about writing. I feel pretty happy with the content of my talk but i enjoy public speaking like i enjoy my annual check up at the dentist. I know i need to get out of my comfort zone and practice these things. The more i practice this whole public speaking, public appearance thing , hopefully the better i will get at it and more importantly, the more comfortable i will feel doing it. I would love to do more of this, if it just didn't scare the bejesus out of me quite so much.

And of course the other aspect to all this, is that everything i read points to the ability to self-promote as an essential tool in the toolbox of any writer. As much as i believe in my own writing self-promotion is a tricky prospect. Perhaps its part of our kiwi psyche of not trumpeting our own successes, but in this country if you don't trumpet your own success in writing there aren't many other people who will. So i have to do everything i can to learn the best ways to self-promote and then suck it up and go out and do it. I was too cheap to buy any rescue remedy today and there's not going to be any alcohol at this event so i'm just keeping my fingers crossed. Wish me luck

The 2008 CBCA Conference, Melbourne

The Children's Book Council of Australia Conference, 2nd to 4th May 2008, Melbourne. I stressed a lot about this before I went, mostly because i'd never travelled overseas by myself before (I lead a very sheltered life) and had never been to Melbourne before either. I needn't have worried. Melbourne is reasonably straightforward, the hotel was a hop, skip and a jump (although I walked) from the main train station (where the airport bus ended up) and the conference venue, and four other kiwis conference attendees were staying at the same place. For a comprehensive run down of many of the keynote addresses and panel discussions check out Fifi's blog www.fificolston.blogspot.com but i thought I'd mention a few other highlights and benefits of attending.

First i'd like to say that going to one conference has only made me want to go to more. They don't need to be overseas, although a little bit of shopping in another country is always fun but NZ doesn't really have them yet for the children's book industry. The Storylines AGM in Auckland every March is usually a great day and an excellent opportunity to catch up with others in the business but it doesn't do workshops, panel discussions or cocktail events. The Storylines festival in June is aimed mostly at the readers as it should be so doesn't really qualify either.

Being immersed in the children's book industry with like-minded people for three whole days was bliss. Writing is a solitary business done at home so to be surrounded by people who are passionate about the same things and who don't glaze over discussing the same topics for hours on end is my idea of heaven. Being a part of this made me feel more committed then ever to writing.

I got to see a little of what the industry is like in Australia which was useful in terms of my long term plans to sell my material overseas. One of the things that came out of the 5% talk during the Writers and Readers Festival last weekend was the concern that it is becoming less economical to publish children's books in NZ unless they have international appeal and can be sold overseas. I don't know how true this is and whether its a trend or a blip but there are real benefits to the author publishing beyond NZ anyway. The recent international interest in NZ authors such as Lloyd Jones and Bernard Beckett has to be maximised by other NZ authors. From what I saw in Australia, while there will always be tough competition to publish, our books would not be out of place over there.

The company of the kiwi contingent over there was fabulous. It would have been much harder alone, much less enjoyable and i came away feeling so much more a part of the local writing scene. I have made new friends from three different sectors of the book business here in NZ.

Introducing yourself to publishers is a complicated business. Most of the publishers at the CBCA were there to sell. Most of the delegates were librarians, teachers and literature or educational academics. The publishers weren't looking for new manuscripts/books and generally don't do that publicly at the best of times. 'Author' can be a very dirty word. I decided to avoid it mostly unless there was already some connection, for example with people who had already seen and or published my work. This was an extremely small group of three. I did introduce myself to several other publishers who publish things in a similar vein to what I write, but tried to keep it low key and didn't frighten too many people I think. This was all good practice but i still need to work on not freezing into the nervous plastic smile and losing the capacity to form decent sentences during conversation. I guess the lesson here is to keep these things brief and have a few safe non-book topics to fall back on - this is hard when you are totally surrounded by books and book people though.

All in all it was a lot of fun (although expensive fun). i hope one day to get such a trip paid for by the industry but i'm not holding my breath.